This is perhaps the most infamous of the British suet and dried fruit roly-poly puddings, the title the cause of many a schoolboy snigger. (And not just schoolboys. Recently an English health service board was forced to rescind its decision to re-christen the pudding ‘Spotted Richard’ on hospital menus, and a well-known supermarket chain followed suit thereafter as well.) It may have declined in popularity – it is quite hefty – but it is still good, especially if served with a Custard Sauce (see page 00) or jam sauce. Nowadays the pudding is more often baked than boiled, but it should actually be steamed. It is also known as spotted dog (strictly speaking, when the dried fruit is mixed with the pastry, rather than being encased in it) and plum bolster (it looks rather like a bolster!).
ingredients
Serves 4
225g (8 oz) plain flour, plus extra for sprinkling
15g (1/2 oz) baking powder
a pinch of salt
115g (4 oz) chopped beef suet
150ml (5 fl oz) water
115g ( 4 oz ) currants
55g (2 oz) raisins
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
METHOD
To make the basic suet pastry, sieve the flour, baking powder and salt together, then rub in the finely chopped suet. Add the water and mix to a dough. Roll out to a rectangle 25 x 15cm (10 x 6 in) and 1cm (1/2 in) thick. Sprinkle with currants and raisins, leaving a border of 1cm (1/2 in) round all sides. Press the fruit in and sprinkle with lemon rind. Paint the borders with water.
Turn the two short sides in and seal. Roll up from a long side carefully, to keep all the fruit in. Seal when rolled up. Take a clean tea towel and rinse in boiling water. Sprinkle with flour and shake off the excess. Lay the roll on top of the cloth, fold the cloth over, and fix at the ends with string. Steam the cloth-wrapped roll for 1 1/2 hours. Take out, unwrap, cut into slices and serve with custard or jam sauce.
PS - This is quite a difficult one, finding a steamer that will hold the pudding roll. Adaptation is the key. You could put the pud on a rack in a roasting tray full of water, then cover it with foil. Bring up to the boil then steam in the oven at 200C/400F/Gas 6 for about 2 hours. Top up the water occasionally. Don’t give up. If none of these work, bake the pud at the above oven temperature, but not in the cloth, brushed with egg wash, for about 1 1/4 hours.